


Primigravida

by rhoswenmahariel (salutationtothestars)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Discussion of Abortion, Established Relationship, F/M, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 09:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4216488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salutationtothestars/pseuds/rhoswenmahariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of Hawke wished she had never gone to the healer in the first place, even if that was ridiculous. The healer only clued her in on what was already happening, hands stuck everywhere with plasters moving tenuously over her stomach as he smiled and announced that she was with child. She hated him, in that moment, for expecting her to be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Primigravida

**Author's Note:**

> An exploration of my Hawke and Fenris's discovery that they might have a child, written for a prompt on tumblr. It isn't received as the most joyous of news, and there is implied mention of a potential abortion. Read according to your comfort level.

It took Hawke three days to decide what she was going to say - three days of closing her mouth like a vise against the words that threatened to fall out, of lying with Fenris at her back and feeling her stomach roll with guilt as if she still stood on Isabela’s ship. Part of her wished she had never gone to the healer in the first place, even if that was ridiculous. The healer only clued her in on what was already happening, hands stuck everywhere with plasters moving tenuously over her stomach as he smiled and announced that she was with child. She hated him, in that moment, for expecting her to be happy, and she hated him for not being Anders, although that was hardly his fault. Anders would have understood this for what it was: an incredibly stupid mistake, a question she had no answer for, not yet.

And his hands would have been sure, she thought, her own hand feeling for an imaginary bump that hadn’t truly begun showing yet. His voice would have settled the panic rising like bile in her throat, and maybe, just maybe, he would have known what she should do. Maker knew she had no idea. For just a moment with any her friends, for a few words of advice and encouragement, she would have spent all the coin they had, what little there was.

Hawke surprised herself with a short laugh, alone in the little house she and Fenris were calling their own, for now. If she was looking for advice from Anders, or Varric, or Maker forbid, Aveline, she was definitely desperate.

Normally, she could tell Fenris nearly anything. His tempers had eased over the years, at least in respect to the cause she somewhat reluctantly championed. Where he once would have lectured her for hours about the dangers of mages, refusing to speak to her for hours until she got in bed behind him and cracked her absolute worst jokes in his ear, he now only shook his head. He never refused his help, either, even seemed to care for many of the refugees who crossed their paths, fleeing the swords at their backs with a relish for life anew that he recognized. It felt strange to keep this from him, more dishonest than she would have thought. If pungent smells and dizzy spells weren’t keeping her sick, then often the guilt of it all did the job instead.

Still, she couldn’t justify telling him until she had a plan, and that took considerably longer than she anticipated. In truth, she still didn’t have one - more a general outline than definitive action - but she couldn’t take the lie of omission anymore. In any case, while she knew he would defer to her judgment, she wanted Fenris to have a say in what happened to it, to them. It was his baby, too, even if by all accounts she could barely refer to it as a baby at all. That would come later, if they let it, a squalling, red-faced thing that would eat and shit and scream without any regard for the fact that they were essentially on the run. Inconsiderate, to say the least. Hawke remembered well her siblings as young ones, especially Carver, who had been contentious and demanding from the day of his birth. She didn’t know if she could handle lugging another Carver around the mountains, not even a very small one.

Bethany was another matter. Sweet Bethany, never cried, just as their mother had said, weeping over her body. She only ever watched you with her big brown eyes, loving you more than you ever deserved even at your lowest. It made Hawke’s heart ache to think of her, how she would have adored the chance to be an aunt, even to a babe who was never meant to be.

By the time Fenris came home, dropping a loaf of bread and a few vegetables on the table serving as their pantry, Hawke was no closer to that plan she’d hunted for so desperately, but there had been enough prevaricating. Waiting for her window, she listened impatiently while he detailed what little he’d gleamed of templar movements, of mages living in a series of rundown apartments toward the edge of the village. Finally, he paused long enough to notice the scowl around her mouth, his eyes looking her over twice before he furrowed his brow.

“Are you all right?” he asked, wrenching at the straps on his gauntlets. As soon as his hands were free, he touched her cheek tentatively with a few fingers, pressed the backs of them against her forehead. Hawke closed her eyes without thinking. “You’re not ill?” It was less a question and more a plea, one that made her heart lodge in her throat.

“No,” she replied, all she could think to say. “Not ill.” Fenris huffed a quick sigh, settled his palm back against her cheek, and pressed his forehead against hers, leaning from where he stood to match her height. “But I have got something to tell you.”

“Speak, then. I will listen.” She felt the hint of a smile as he pressed his lips to the corner of hers, pulling away again as she opened her eyes. He busied himself as she made a last scrabble for the right words, gnawing her lip until she finally thought she had a place to begin.

“Do you remember,” she said, watching him sort through the food they had left for something to eat, “that night last month, when we had the spare coin for that dank tavern with the watered-down ale?”

Fenris chuckled. “I remember that it happened, although details escape me,” he said rather wryly. “If I recall, we were excruciatingly drunk.”

We were, she wanted to say, so drunk that I forgot I hadn’t been keeping up with my tinctures, so drunk that neither of us thought at all about preventative measures. None of that would come out, so she tried instead, I went to see a healer who gave me some unpleasant news, and then she wanted to call it not unpleasant but wonderful, maybe, if they gave it a chance, but not a single one of her carefully chosen phrases managed to escape the blockage in her lips.

Instead, true to her usual form, she put her metaphorical foot square in her mouth and blurted around it, too loud, too harsh, “I'm pregnant.”

Fenris seemed halfway through a scoff when he suddenly turned to look straight at her, deadly serious. Hawke didn’t quail under his stare, didn’t squirm - she was not afraid of his anger, not in the least. Instead she met his eyes with hers, holding them as he sank back down onto the bench across from where she perched, one arm tucked against her stomach. They sat in silence for a while, all thoughts of distractions gone, until Fenris rubbed a hand over his mouth and spoke through his fingers.

“Venhedis.”

“It’s funny,” Hawke said, not thinking it was very funny at all. “I said the same thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also found at my tumblr, salutationtothestars, in slightly different format.


End file.
